Shadow Coach – Author – PhD

Books

Lulu’s first book Angry Bitch! Who are You? I Love you – A Mothers journey from shame to happiness is a tribute to the power of Integrative Coaching and Shadow Work which has given her the tools and willingness to create a fulfilling and joyful life for herself.

The book shares transformational stories from her own personal journey highlighting how we are not victims of our emotional world, we are much more than that and we can learn to become a conscious viewer of our life circumstances. When we do that without any judgment, guilt or shame we regain the power to make any shift or change we desire.

She hopes her book will entertain you, give you food for thought, hope and inspiration on your own journey of creating a life you love!

(Bad news: No one else is going to do it for you – Good news: You can do it)

Praise for “Angry Bitch! Who are you? I Love you!”

Lulu Brix Mahaini’s book Angry B****! Who are you? I Love You, is a reminder to us all that “life is meant to make us feel good.

Lulu Brix Mahaini is no stranger to expat life. She was born in Denmark, studied in Australia and the US, and now resides in the UAE. She is a certified Master integrative coach, trained by Debbie Ford at The Ford Institute in California. With this book she has bestowed her gift to the world to help us be the best version of ourselves! She understands the stress and demanding pull of what it is like dealing with change and struggles in life.
Any woman who picks up this book will identify with the author during the foreword. She expresses her journey of self-discovery. She bares with us her own inner development thus engaging with the reader from the onset. Her emotions and personal thoughts are something that all women have thought of at some point in their life.

As she develops further in to her journey, Mahaini makes it clear that her intention is to help women, in particular mothers. Skeptical about what I would get out of this book, I am not a mother myself, I carried on reading. I was surprised to find that I could identify with Mahaini’s journey. She offers practical advice on how to deal with anger during transitional phases in our lives.

The book starts off with accepting that everyone shares worries, self-doubts and question about life. She explores the idea that we are all guilty of playing the ‘victim’ when we project our anguish onto the world. She explains that her mission is to coach us using the Ford Institute methods. Mahaini breaks herself down to empower her to accept those shadows and use them to enhance her life. Mahaini lets us in on her personal journey to help the reader learn how to lead more happy and powerful lives.

Refreshingly, Mahaini offers a very practical method of coaching. Identifying that we do have emotions and will feel negativity in our lives, yet offering alternative ways to react to this feelings. She points out that “we have a choice to step out of our emotional world and look at our lives from a more rational perspective.”

She teaches us to deal with our shadows or inner anger by channeling that energy to a more useful place. We need to see our weakness as a useful tool and accept them. There are many of these types of books on the market, especially as we are part of a civilization where so much is expected of us. Mahaini points out the obvious and common sense approach to life, yet we are all guilty of not putting this into practice.

It is a useful read and one that can be dipped in and out of easily. It will remain on my book shelf along with ‘Tuesday with Morrie’ and ‘Eat, Pray Love’ for when I need to have an internal pep talk. We all have different roles to fulfill in life, mother, daughter, friend, auntie, and wife. All roles are accompanied by a different set of demands. We have outstanding technology to help us in our daily lives to be the best we can be, the burden of that, so much more is expected of us. Instant response and reaction are expected. Lulu Brix Mahaini has a rightful place amongst literature of this genre that causes pause for thought and self-reflection.

A certified integrative coach shares how embracing all aspects of herself led to greater overall well-being in this debut memoir and self-improvement guide.

Mahaini, a Danish native now living with her husband and children in Dubai, was feeling ashamed about being an “angry bitch” while dealing with the demands of being a wife and mother. Such incidents finally led her to undergo training at the Ford Institute, which helped her to fully recognize and thus take responsibility for this pattern of behavior, which had been present throughout her life. She details how she had imposed a lot of pressure on herself while earning a Ph.D. in pharmacology at a university in Australia, for example, and had less-than-satisfactory relationships with men that “came partly from my biological father’s not having much contact with me when I was a child, which in a child’s interpretation meant that I was unworthy.” Mahaini notes that she is better at handling her life now, including making sure that she allots time for such activities as coaching work and writing this book. She believes this greater sense of happiness is due to her having “learned to absolutely love and adore my angry part, for showing me the way.” She now can also heal herself “so the anger doesn’t burst forth so frequently. I can listen to my needs much more carefully, so it doesn’t have to erupt to get my attention.” The author offers an engaging exploration of the “inner work,” as she terms it, required to transform one’s life. Many readers, particularly mothers, should connect to her challenges of being a caretaker of young children, particularly the difficulty yet also necessity of carving out personal time that will actually help alleviate these stresses. At times, however, Mahaini’s musings, such as her angst while at a “very nice beachside hotel in Oman,” come off like “first-world problems” rather than relatable crises. And more details on the tools of integrative coaching, which clearly benefited her, would have been welcome.

A highly personal narrative that nevertheless showcases the universal value of self-discovery.